If you look up the name of this restaurant, you will find several around the world with the same name, and some are still in existence. The one that I have been to and remember was downtown, not far from the RenCen and the Plaza Hotel. It was a popular little bistro when that was still an uncommon word in the Detroit area. It was French without the trappings of what people expected of a French restaurant, especially back then. One of the unique aspects of La Marmite, back then, was that the menu changed weekly, which in hindsight is what a bistro should offer; the menu should reflect what was available that week at the market.

I recall it having a very short and sweet menu of choices, which is fine, especially when the offerings are fresh, made to order and properly executed. I remember having Beef Carpaccio there, and it may have been my first encounter, or one of the first, and a dish that I still enjoy to this day. I also remember having Escalope of Veal, a fancy way of saying basically a Veal Cutlet, but it was the sauce that I still remember the most. The sauce was a mix of lemon and green onions that had a different taste, then any other veal dish that I have had. I also remember wanting to have the roast duck that evening, but it was prepared with fruits and nuts, and I was too naive to ask if it could be prepared differently. What I have learned over the years about chefs, is that some are receptive to requests for a slightly different interpretation of a dish, but then some are not; but back then I did not know that.

Since I was having a veal dish, I opted for a lighter wine, which for me back then when I was still teaching myself the different wines was a Burgundy. Nowadays with the price of so many Burgundy wines being so dear, I might say Pinot Noir. I had a bottle of Santenay from the famous negocient Maison Joseph Drouhin. Santenay is one of the villages in the Cote de Beaune that has a couple Premiers Crus, but this was not one of them. Santenay was famous back in the Roman times for the hot water springs and was known as Santinae Aquae or Health Giving Waters. While the wines of Santenay and Maison Joseph Drouhin are still going concerns, the restaurant La Marmite is no longer.